Harlequin Superromance September 2017 Box Set

CHAPTER TWELVE

COLE’S FAMILY RANCH was something out of a picture book. Set at the edge of a wide meadow where a herd of Angus grazed, it wasn’t much bigger than Karl’s farm but had so much more visual appeal. The house and barn were both sided with rustic boards, which had weathered to a beautiful golden brown. A jackleg fence stretched along one side of the meadow, and the corrals and pens were constructed of poles instead of wire. The place looked rustic yet manicured.

“The siding is fake,” Cole said before she could utter a word. “Well, the barn’s real, but Miranda wanted the house to have more impact, so she paid to have the vinyl siding taken off and replaced with the cedar boards. Then she wanted us to pay for it, but I fought her on it.” He stopped at the gate. “That was our first rift after my uncle died.”

He got out to open the gate, even though Taylor had volunteered, hooking it back against the fence with a chain before driving through.

Cole had gone over the situation with his ranch as he drove, keeping his gaze locked on the road. He’d explained how Miranda had married his uncle several years ago and initially charmed everyone. The Bryan brothers—Cole’s father and uncle—had been steadily losing money on their ranches and had agreed that a guest ranch was worth a shot, especially since Miranda had offered to take the helm. Things went well in the beginning, but once his uncle died, the situation had changed. Miranda had changed. True colors began to show.

Cole’s expression had grown increasingly tight as they’d neared the ranch, and now, as he parked next to the house, she was wondering if he was in danger of cracking a tooth. She touched his arm.

His gaze jerked over to her, and then he made an effort to relax his features. “Sorry. Lots of crazy emotions tied up in this place.”

Taylor was beginning to toy with the idea of kissing him before his blood pressure redlined. Instead she got out of the truck. A kid in his late teens came out of the barn as Taylor closed her door, and Cole motioned for her to join him. They walked over to meet the boy at the ATV he’d left near the pasture fence.

“How’s it going, Matt?”

“Jancey’s staying with you, right?”

“Yeah.”

“I tried to text her, but she didn’t answer.”

“She’s fine.”

The kid nodded, looking relieved. He glanced behind him as if expecting someone to be there listening, then said, “The queen is pissed that she just took off without telling anyone.”

“She’s going to have to get over it.”

Matt threw a leg over the ATV. “Tell Jancey hi and that it wouldn’t kill her to text back.”

“She’s off her game right now, but I’ll tell her.”

The kid started the engine, then with a wave, headed back across the pasture.

“Miranda sends him to do the chores. Since she uses the place, she wants it public ready at all times.”

“She uses the entire place?”

“Not the house. The house is ours. Well, the entire place is ours, but she has the rights to use it tied up.”

“Renegotiate.”

“It’s a fifty-fifty ownership deal. She won’t budge and neither will we.”

“Unless you have something she wants and can bargain.”

Cole turned to her, his expression serious. “I have nothing that Miranda wants other than this property. That leaves us in a bad place.”

“So it seems.”

“Come on. I’ll show you the house and you can see why it isn’t used for guests.”

The house was totally old-fashioned inside, with small rooms. The kitchen was large, though. There were heat grates in the floors of the upstairs rooms to allow the heat from the kitchen to permeate the rest of the house.

“They made the rooms small so that they could close off the ones not in use during the winter and not heat them.”

“I can understand that, but wow, if you knocked out some walls—”

Cole shot her a look that stopped her dead. “Then Miranda would probably come up with a loophole to use the house.”

“Could she?”

“Probably not, but she’d drive me crazy in the process.”

“You need out of this agreement.”

He turned toward her. “You think?”

“Have you consulted an attorney?” A question she’d put off asking until she had more facts.

He put a gentle palm on each side of Taylor’s face, making her nerves start doing a crazy dance, and instead of answering, focused on her as if she were the answer. Things were heating up between them, and she wasn’t doing one damned thing to stop them.

“Cole?”

“Miranda has an attorney on retainer.”

“That doesn’t mean…”

“The land is mine and Jancey’s. It’s not going anywhere. When I get ahead, I’ll hire a lawyer.”

“But what if she finds a loophole to gain possession,” Taylor asked. “Eminent domain, or pedis possessio?”

He gave a short laugh. “I think she would have already done that if she could, because that’s exactly how my cousin got his ranch out of her clutches.”

“Bottom line, you can’t make a living on your own property?”

“I can, but I can’t. Jancey and I get a percentage of the take from the guest ranch, but it’s not as much as you might think. If there’s an open position on the ranch, Jancey or I could choose to take the job and draw a paycheck in addition to the percentage—which is what we did in the past. I worked there for…hell, since I was sixteen. Went back to work after college, thinking that it was my job to help the family business. Then my uncle died and it all went to hell.

“I can live here on my ranch. However, if I work the ranch, the money I make goes into the general coffers and I pull a percentage of that, as does Miranda.”

“Her finger’s in every pie.”

“The result of an agreement between brothers—one of whom was madly in love with her.”

Cole gestured toward the door with his chin. “I’ll show you the rest.”

He toured her through the barns, which had been expertly staged. He shook his head at the gleaming leather harnesses hung on one wall.

“Looks good,” Taylor murmured.

“Want to know how long it’s been since there’s been a draft horse on the place?” He stopped at the wide door at the far end of the barn and stared out over the fields. Everything about him was stiff and defensive. Taylor was familiar with the posture, having held it a few times herself as she dealt with problems at work…but those problems had never been personal.

She shifted her weight, and he slowly turned toward her, tearing his gaze away from his land. One corner of his mouth tightened. “You know why I brought you with me, right?”

“To keep you from doing something that might get you arrested?”

The corners of his mouth quirked into a faint smile. “Just so we’re on the same page.” He settled his hands on her shoulders, staring down at her seriously. “But I never asked if you were on board for a meeting with the queen.”

“Totally.” She couldn’t wait to meet the woman.

“I thought about bringing my cousin Jordan, but he and Miranda…well, let’s just say that until recently, I was able to play the game with her. He never was.”

“Blood on the walls?”

“It’d be close to that.”

She set her hands on his biceps, felt them tighten under her palms, but neither of them moved closer.

He went on. “I don’t know which Miranda you’ll see—probably the pathologically nice one to begin with, but since I’m not going to play her game…well, I just want you to watch. See if you see what I do.” He gave a small snort. “And then help me come up with a way to defeat her.”

“She sounds like a supervillain.”

“No.” He brushed his fingers down her face and leaned down to give her a soft kiss before stepping back. The kiss was as heady as the hot one had been. Maybe more so. “She’s just an evil narcissist.”

Taylor smiled a little. “Same difference. I’ve encountered a few of them in my professional life.”

“Another reason you’re here.” He swept his gaze around the barn, shook his head and then motioned toward the truck parked just outside. “Let’s do this thing.”

“Sure.” She reached out and took his hand. He squeezed her fingers and kept hold of them until he opened the truck door for her.

Taylor settled inside. Where is this going? her little voice murmured as Cole got into the truck.

Into territory she’d never been in before.

She straightened her shoulders. Okay, so she was venturing into something new with a guy she was beginning to like a little too much. A guy who made her hormones happy.

A guy whose lifestyle didn’t exactly mesh with her own.

Maybe it’s time to stop thinking.

She didn’t know if she could do that, but she could suspend activity until she got more information. Actually…she’d been doing pretty good at suspending activity lately. It wasn’t a bad skill to hone.

Instead of following the road that Matt had taken, Cole drove out the main entrance, locked the gate after him, then followed the pavement to the guest ranch.

Like his ranch, this one was meticulously kept. The buildings were rustic, yet obviously new. And there were a lot of them.

“This is some place,” Taylor said. A tastefully carved wooden sign on the cabin-like building to her right said Spa and Sauna.

“It used to look a lot like my ranch, once upon a time.”

He took her hand as they walked up the steps to what was the main lodge. “My cousin grew up here. I don’t think there’s anything left that he recognizes.”

A young woman in a white shirt approaching from the direction of the stairway smiled in welcome, but the smile disappeared when she saw Cole standing beside Taylor. One of the loyal minions, no doubt.

“I want to see Miranda.”

“She’s—”

“Right here,” a carefully modulated voice sounded from the top of the stairs. A woman in her midfifties, dressed in dark-wash denim jeans, a plain white shirt and a zillion-dollar turquoise-and-silver necklace descended the staircase. As she caught sight of Taylor, her expression became one of gracious welcome. If Taylor hadn’t been clued in, she would have totally bought it.

“Cole.”

“Miranda.”

“I’m Taylor.” No sense waiting for introductions while these two faced off, one smiling graciously, the other stone-faced, both with hard, hard gazes pinned on the other.

“So nice to meet you.” Miranda offered her hand and Taylor took it, noting that the woman wore no rings except for the gold band on her left hand, and that her nails were buffed but she didn’t wear polish. Yet everything about her and her environment cried money. Purposeful? Probably.

She was attempting to look down-to-earth but elegant. It was working. With milky skin, pale green eyes and light auburn hair, simplicity suited her.

Taylor smiled and withdrew her hand, wishing she could have said she was Cole’s attorney just to see the woman’s reaction.

Miranda turned her attention to Cole. “Have you heard from Jancey?”

“She’s staying with me,” Cole said. “That’s why I’m here.”

Miranda wore an expression of extreme relief, then her features hardened. “Even though she’s family, this isn’t working, Cole. I can’t have people disappearing like this. It’s too nerve-racking.”

“You didn’t call to let me know she was missing.”

“I didn’t know if she was missing.” The smile became strained. “She’s eighteen. She might have been on an…overnight date.”

The woman who’d greeted Taylor entered the room and passed behind them on her way to an office, but Miranda lifted her chin, the silent message was instantly received, and a second later they were alone again.

“You threatened my sister.”

Miranda’s eyes went wide. “I did no such thing.”

“She told me everything. How you attempted to strong-arm her—”

Her chin went up before she interrupted him. “There is no crime in offering to buy something. Especially when Jancey can use the money.”

“There is when you tell lies about her to college admissions.”

Miranda’s hand went to her chest. “I did no such thing.”

“One of your little helpers, then. Which one is related to someone influential?”

An expression of outrage began to form. “I don’t have to stand for this…”

“I know someone in Danner College admissions,” Taylor said, which was almost but not quite true.

Miranda turned cold eyes toward her. Any hope that the woman would twitch instantly evaporated. “How lovely. It’ll make it easier to check the facts, although I believe there are federal regulations that prevent such information from being released.”

Cole glared. “If Jancey loses her slot at that school—”

Taylor took hold of Cole’s uninjured wrist and wrapped her fingers firmly around it, both as a show of moral support and just in case he felt driven to do something he’d regret later.

“We’ll open an investigation,” she said quietly. “I don’t believe anonymous tips are covered under federal regulations. There is a law against slander, however.”

“You’re both being ridiculously dramatic,” Miranda snapped. “Jancey quit because she can’t handle living here without you. She ran home to big brother and told him a tale about me threatening her.” She lifted her chin, gave a small sniff. “If there’s nothing else?”

“Threaten my sister again—do anything to my sister again—and you will regret it.”

An expression closer to a smirk than a smile formed on the woman’s face. “Jancey is my niece. I would never threaten her.”

Cole drew in a breath. “I may well start spending more time on the ranch. My ranch.”

“Be warned, then, that this summer we’ll be doing a lot more with the working part of the ranch. Those packages are becoming very popular.”

Cole simply smiled, and Taylor had to give him points for not breaking. “We’ll see.”

He took Taylor’s hand in his and started back for the door.

“It’s in the agreement, Cole. There’s nothing you can do about it,” Miranda called pleasantly after him. Cole’s grip tightened on Taylor’s hand, but other than that, he didn’t react.

* * *

THE DRIVE BACK was silent.

Taylor stared out the windshield, processing what she’d just witnessed, making Cole wonder if she’d gotten a true enough glimpse of the real Miranda to understand what he was up against. She’d jumped in a time or two, but he didn’t know if that had been because she was showing support or because she truly got what a liar Miranda was.

Whatever her take, at least her presence had kept him from blowing up—a tactic that never worked with Miranda. As people got angrier, she got icier. It was her go-to defense, and a difficult one to deal with.

Finally, as he exited the highway at the Eagle Valley, Taylor took a deep breath and turned her head to look his way, an expression of concern in her blue eyes. But she didn’t say anything. Maybe she was waiting for him to lead the charge.

He didn’t want to talk. He didn’t know what he could say. Either Taylor got it or she didn’t.

When he parked the truck and turned off the ignition, neither of them moved. Then they reached for their door handles simultaneously, exchanging a look before they got out. Cole met Taylor at the rear of the truck.

“Thanks for coming along.”

“Do you…want to talk?” Judging from her tone, she already knew his answer—if he’d wanted to talk, he would have initiated—but since she’d asked…

“Not now. Maybe later.” Maybe never, but he was glad he’d brought her along.

“All right.” She started toward the bunkhouse, but made only a couple of steps before she reversed course, came to stand directly in front of him, reached up to take his face between her hands and kissed him. Not a soft kiss like the one he’d given her in the barn, just because, but a let’s-tackle-our-frustrations kiss. An I’m-going-to-eat-you-alive kiss.

Cole put his hands on her slim waist, telling himself he was going to end the kiss, but instead he gave her a small tug and pulled her body into his. “Are you doing this because you feel sorry for me?”

She shook her head, her hands still on his face. “No.” And then her mouth was back on his, and he decided that he didn’t care if she felt sorry for him or not. He wanted her any way that he could have her. He walked her backward a few steps, then when she almost lost her balance, he lifted his head and nodded toward the bunkhouse.

“Yes.”

Cole was rapidly becoming a fan of monosyllabic responses. He kept an arm around her as they covered the short distance to the place that neither of them had wanted to move into—a place that suddenly seemed perfect.

They were barely in the door when Taylor started working on his shirt buttons. No analysis, no “Are you sure?” Now he had his answer about what she’d be like—she took charge. He was good with that.

No—he sucked air in over his teeth as she finished with his shirt and started undoing his belt—he was great with that. But he also wanted his turn.

He covered her hands with his, and her gaze came up to his. He brushed a kiss over her mouth, nipped at her lower lip, took hold of the bottom of her T-shirt and pulled it up over her head, tossing it onto the chair.

“Nice undies,” he muttered as he took in the sheer mesh bra that left nothing to the imagination. If he’d known she wore stuff like this, well, this moment might have arrived sooner.

“You should have seen the things that got stolen,” she said, gasping as he lowered his mouth to suck her warm flesh through the sheer fabric.

“Yeah?”

“I haven’t been able to replace them.” Her voice squeaked a little as he pushed the mesh aside to allow himself access to her nipples, and then her hands fisted in his hair as he gave each perfect breast the attention it deserved.

“Do you like that?” he asked, swirling her nipple with his tongue, then slowly pulling it into his mouth.

Her grip on his hair tightened. “Oh, yeah.” He went to one knee, his hands skimming over her hips as his tongue trailed a path down her tight abs toward her jeans. He undid the button, lowered the zipper, and had started to work them over her hips when she said his name. He met her questioning gaze, and reality crashed through the haze in his brain. “I have to go to my place to get condoms.”

“I have one.”